Trying everything

"I've tried everything!' "I've looked everywhere!" And both are almost always incorrect. Exasperated people often contact us with one of these two statements and are ultimately relieved when we are able to point them in a different direction, suggest the one thing they missed, the one place they didn't look. It happens to us all. Recently I was contacted by my credit card company. My card was about to expire. They encouraged me to update the info just as soon as I had received that new card in the mail. And the card never came. And the expiration date came and went. And now I am in a panic. I've looked everywhere! But I haven't yet tried everything. I email the credit card company with my problem. Of course they respond with an automated email giving me a list of places to look and things to try. Harumph! I pick up the phone and wander through the endless maze of useless options, none of which apply to me, and talk to a machine which claims to understand, but of course it does not. Finally a friendly young man comes on the line. "I've looked everywhere, yet the new card never came," said I, confident of my facts. He calmly says he'll take a look to see what's up with the account. "I tried everything!" and, of course I have. Everything that occurs to me. Turns out my card hadn't expired. They were referring to another card that was linked to this card. Indeed, that card had expired and I needed to simply update the info. Blush. We rely on each other for help and thank goodness we don't try to do everything in a vacuum. Feel free to email us when you've run out of options with your system. We've been there, done that.